‘The only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back,’ the president-elect said.
President-elect Donald Trump said in a new interview that he would work to end birthright citizenship and signaled that he could deport families with mixed immigration statuses.
Trump’s mass deportation proposal was a major component of his 2024 presidential campaign, and last month, the president-elect said he would declare a national emergency over the matter.
“I don’t want to be breaking up families, so the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back,” Trump said in an interview with Kristen Welker on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that aired on Dec. 8.
When asked by Welker about what that could mean for children who are in the United States legally despite that their parents are in the country illegally, Trump responded, “Well, what you’ve got to do if they want to stay with their father—look, we have to have rules and regulations.”
“I think you have to do it,” Trump said, referring to mass deportations. “It’s a very tough thing to do. It’s—but you have to have … rules, regulations, laws. They came in illegally. You know, the people that have been treated very unfairly are the people that have been in line for 10 years to come into the country.”
Trump also said that he would seek to repeal birthright citizenship, meaning that U.S. citizenship can be acquired by being born in the country, via executive action. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has signaled that it would mount legal challenges to any executive order targeting birthright citizenship.
Trump then said those who committed crimes would be prioritized for deportation, echoing his previous statements about illegal immigration.
“We have to get the criminals out of our country,” Trump said. “But we’re starting with the criminals … and then we’re starting with others, and we’re going to see how it goes.”
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